(May 23, 2008) The Chinese government has told Chinese banks to forgive debts owed by uninsured survivors to revive Sichuan’s economy, reports the BBC.
AIDS for India
(March 19, 2008) World Bank and the government of India launch face-saving investigation after defective HIV/AIDS test kits, purchased with bank funds, are supplied by the Indian government to hospitals and blood banks across the country.
Western Countries Cancel Iraqi Debt, Gulf Countries Don’t
(May 15, 2008) During the long years of Saddam Hussein’s rule in Iraq, economic data were treated as top national secrets, and the revelation of such data to unauthorized persons could bring the death penalty.
Democracy, capital flows, and odious debt’
(May 12, 2008) Democracy commits a ruler to pass borrowed funds on to the private sector which builds the country’s international collateral, and the consequent rise in the credit ceiling is a Pareto-improvement up to a point because the ruler can appropriate a smaller share of rising loan. However, the ruler may still impose odious debt in the sense that the private sector prefers the country to borrow less. Under conditions, a fall in the world interest rate or a rise in productivity growth increases the optimal levels of democracy, borrowing, investment, and welfare. I offer suggestive evidence from a global panel.
Debt cancellation a victory for the world
(May 7, 2008) Last month, the House of Representatives showed leadership in the fight against global poverty by passing the Jubilee Act for Responsible Lending and Expanded Debt Cancellation, which would extend lifesaving debt cancellation to more poor nations around the globe.
Alexander Sack and Odious Debts: A Response to Ludington and Gulati
(April 15, 2008) In their paper’s abstract, Gulati and Ludington set out to expose the “murky reality” of the life of Alexander Nahum Sack, and how this reality conflicts with the “myth perpetuated in the odious debts literature.” The dominant theme, though insinuated rather than stated clearly, is that the odious debts movement has deliberately exaggerated Sack’s eminence in order to establish the doctrine as customary international law. The authors also make few distinctions among the various organizations in the debt forgiveness movement. I would recommend that the authors stick to the facts rather than assign motives, and be precise in their charges rather than employing broad brushes.
New Estimates of Capital Flight from Sub-Saharan African Countries: Linkages with External Borrowing and Policy Options
(April 1, 2008) Over the past decades, African countries have been forced by external debt burdens to undertake painful economic adjustments while devoting scarce foreign exchange to debt-service payments. On the other hand, African countries have experienced massive outflows of private capital towards Western financial centers. Indeed, these private assets surpass the continent’s foreign liabilities, ironically making sub-Saharan Africa a “net creditor” to the rest of the world.
World Bank funds Kenya’s ‘culture of corruption’
(March 26, 2008) World Bank funding has been called out as a large contributor to Kenya’s ‘culture of corruption’ in the wake of last year’s presidential election crisis.
Chad’s checkmate
(March 26, 2008) World bank system to safeguard oil revenues hasn’t exactly worked as expected.
Why Aren’t We Developing Faster?
(March 4, 2008) According to Paul Wolfowitz, former President of the World Bank: World Bank’s beneficiary countries that do not have access to capital markets mostly “remain poor because their political system is unstable, private property rights are very limited, the judicial system is weak or subservient, or the Government is corrupt” and assistance to such countries “at best provides relief [and] at worst supports corruption or programs that waste scarce local and external resources”.
NGOs’ letter to Ban Ki-Moon about odious debts
(February 29, 2008) A letter from NGOs to Ban Ki-Moon regarding external debt.
Challenging apartheid’s foreign deb
(February 1, 2008) South Africa’s widely commended Truth & Reconciliation Commission has a blind spot. Surprisingly, no attention appears to have been given to the foreign corporations, individual investors and Western governments that helped create and sustain the racial dictatorship which came to be known as apartheid.
“World Bank disgrace”: Wall Street Journal
(January 16, 2008) A review of World Bank loans to India’s health sector by the Bank’s own internal watchdog, indicates fraud and corruption put lives at risk, enriching contractors in the process. Worse still, says WSJ, the bank repeatedly looked the other way.
Clearly Odious
(January 16, 2008) Reporting on Indonesia’s ex-president Suharto’s death watch, Canada’s National Post writer, Peter Goodspeed, paints a clear picture of how the people of Indonesia became saddled with a legacy of odious debts.
Scholars chart new legal course
(January 16, 2008) The principles of the odious debt doctrine exploded into the modern debt debate following the U.S. led invasion of Iraq, capturing the attention of legal scholars and exciting new thought on the history, the foundation, and the future application of the doctrine.
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Lawrence Solomon
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